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Are you trying to teach kids to not cheat? Or are you trying to teach them how to conceptualize, illustrate (if not demonstrate), and structure ethics such that

Are you trying to teach kids to not cheat? Or are you trying to teach them how to conceptualize, illustrate (if not demonstrate), and structure ethics such that they can make critical and thoughtful deductions or contributions to the field? Because, if it's the former: great job, Ranger Rick. You definitely used a method that will root out cheaters and give them some (small/limited) incentive not to cheat anymore. But, if it's the latter, you've failed your students in every respect. It's not even a clean example of the ethics of cheating, because you've tipped the scales in ways that affect multiple variables, instead of just one. Neither of which is ethical or unethical in the vacuums of consideration that any subject remains neutral in. But if the context is that it's a philosophy class, I would expect the teacher teach me philosophical ethics and let the chaff fall where it may, rather than try to "prove" some nebulous idea of what it means to "know" something, and why one method of being able to 'prove' it is inferior to some other method. Put simply: I'm in this class to learn. If you're giving me the information and then I pass the test, that's your entire responsibility. Whatever third parties are doing - so long as it's not infringing on you - is not relevant. Not to your class and my grades. Sorry you're one of THOSE teachers, but learning isn't a test. It's a lifelong pursuit and you can't force people to pursue what they're A) not interested in or B) deft enough to use digital memory for.

sanderjd 3y ago
I think both? At least, when I was in school, I thought one of the first-order lessons they were trying to teach us was to not cheat, while also teaching us other things.
- catapart 3y ago
  Yeah, but WHY would they want to teach you not to cheat? It's not a virtue, in and of itself (cheating has to be defined for each context it's in so "don't cheat" is like saying "don't be bad"). They teach you not to cheat because if you cheat, you won't know the answer when you need it. If you're a doctor, and don't know the answer to a question when you need it, you might kill someone. A lawyer has problems there, too. There are great values in keeping people from relying on deferred knowledge, in a great many applications. I just don't see how philosophical ethics - especially not a mid-level course - benefits from those same lessons/limitations. If a software developer isn't expected to know every language pattern; only how to look up the patterns they need, when they need them, then why would then be disallowed from doing that on a test? A better test would target different metrics than "correct answer" or "incorrect answer". The same thing applies here. You can do software dev without being able to pass an "internal knowledge only" test. You can be productive with ethical philosophy without being able to pass an "internal knowledge only" test. So yes, both is the goal. What I'm getting at is that both SHOULDN'T be the goal. In a lot of cases. Most, I'd hazard to guess.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    That's not why they teach you not to cheat. That's why they teach doctors (and other kinds of students) that they need to memorize some things in order to have fast recall without requiring a reference. But they teach you not to cheat because cheating is bad, on its own terms. The purpose of education is not just to teach facts, but also to teach young people how to be net-positive members of society. (This is why society subsidizes education.) Teaching not to cheat to get ahead falls within that part of the curriculum.
    - catapart 3y ago
      Nothing I said implies I think education only teaches fact. Obviously I believe the contrary, as evidenced by my comments. As far as education teaching people how to be net-positive members of society, I agree that's what the education we subsidize is intended for, but that doesn't apply to this situation. A mid-level psychology course at a higher learning institution. If you honestly think that the GOAL of that course is to teach children not to cheat, I think you're grossly mistaken. First and foremost by the fact that not all students are "young people". And then by the fact that we have other courses, even in higher learning institutions, that deal with teaching the students ethics. In the other classes, as with all other areas of life, you're just expected to employ the ethics of the society. It's a meta-reinforcement of those lessons, but the reinforcements are not the lessons of the other classes. If a student fails in their ethics classes due to their ethical decisions, that makes sense. If a student fails math with the right answers but the wrong "ethics", that doesn't make sense. Unethically sourced math answers can still provide the solutions to problems. Just ask NASA. So then, if a professor of an unrelated or tangentially related field takes it upon themselves to make a lesson out of what should be a meta-reinforcement, in a field that they readily admit that they are unprepared to work in or do data analysis for, that is not a reasonable source of ethical education. Especially not when done without prior social experiment approval and safeguards.
      - sanderjd 3y ago
        There are two different questions: 1. Are these the right rules? and 2. Should students be taught to follow well defined rules? You're almost entirely talking about #1, and I totally agree. The vast majority of classes should not forbid looking stuff up because it is an artificial constraint that doesn't reflect the reality outside school. But I think #2 is also important. I know it's passe, especially in the silicon valley milieu that we swim in here, but I think "not following rules you personally think are stupid is good" is a bad lesson for students to learn. (FWIW: I thought the opposite when I was a student, but I was a short-sighted idiot when I was a student.)
elliotto 3y ago
Thank you for this comment. It's fascinating how everyone else in this thread seems to view education as a tool purely to acquire qualifications rather than for actually learning anything. I wonder if this is a US thing that has come about as the result of education becoming a financial instrument.
- catapart 3y ago
  I honestly think it's more of a reactionary thing. Cheating is bad. That's a pretty uncontroversial statement. Whatever the criteria for "cheating", if we're all agreeing that you did it, that's bad and deserves 'correction'. Once you're there, there's not a lot of reason to go further. "Did he cheat? Yes? Then he bad." Easy peasy, next topic of consideration. Why spend more time on something that has a simple answer? In this scenario, the students did what would have unequivocally been a "cheat", in generations past. They looked up answers and used them to prove knowledge. That's what every person who ever failed a math test for cheating did. So, again, even going deeper, this is cheating, plain and simple. No need to wade in any further, when you've already given the benefit of the doubt. Of course, this not being math, and technology replacing the need for such conventions in math are both important considerations that change the context. But, you have to give it now a third thought before you even get to this point, and of course, here's where things are quite subjective. I bet people would still pretend that knowing math is important for whatever corner of life they inhabit ("I work construction and geometry makes you a pro", "gotta be able to calculate tips", "you'll get killed on contracts with tricky rates"). Most would also quickly concede that if they were just taught how to get to interfaces (apps/websites/etc) that solve those problems, that would be effective as well (even if they couldn't help adding "but knowing is faster/better/convenient/etc"). And so, not only are we dealing with subjectivity and historical bias, but now also a confirmation bias. And all of that is on top of the authority bias that a lot of people START with ("the authority said don't do it; the students did it; they should fail." So, personally, I don't chalk up to indoctrination/conspiracy/malice anything that can be assumed to be myopia/selfishness/fear/distrust/etc. Humans are capable of the formers, but far more susceptible to the latters. That said, I'm never going to defend the US educational system, so I'm not disagree with you.
  - 3y ago
6D794163636F756 3y ago
I think you have to verify that cheating did not occur in order to verify if they have learned the ethics espoused by the course. Tests function to prevent those who have not understood the course material from claiming they have. In that situation verification of truthfulness is required before you can verify their skills
- catapart 3y ago
  That assumes that a student is incapable of understanding the ethics without being able to practice the ethics. I think you would have a high bar in proving that to be the case. A lot of people do shit they, personally, find unethical, so long as they can square it with their own contexts of exceptions. The provided test tries to have it both ways, but that's invalid. If they are supposed to be learning the answers to the questions on the test, they can prove that even if they looked those answers up. But if the test is to not look up answers and then they get a score reflecting their ethics, then the class is meant to make more ethical students; not to have more people understand the answers to the questions on the test. At best, you could make the case for the ethical test being a component to the class. Give it a rigorous score, just like you do for any other answer on the test (pass/fail seems reductive, in this scenario, but it's reductive for a lot of tests answers, so whatever. bless the teachers who give partial points). But verifying what a student KNOWS does not, in any way, involve what ACTIONS they take.
  - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
    You make a lot of good points and it's made me think that there is a fundamental assumption that tests are useful. I think that that is not the case. As you said this test attempt to both validate knowledge and ethics and ends up invalidating itself. It seems to be a flaw intrinsic to this style of test. I have taken some very well constructed tests. They were not takehome and only one was multiple choice (it was a systems class so it became sets of binary answers which became more than multiple choice). I think that ensuring the integrity of answers in necessary for gaging learnings from a test like this but that need, as you've implied, would indicate that the test is the wrong tool
low_tech_love 3y ago
With all due respect, this is nonsense. This is a teacher and a human being that exists and works within a system. You seem to be one of those people who thinks that teachers are some kind of supernatural, super-powerful heroes of humanity who have the responsibility on their backs to be larger than life. This guy has to apply exams; it's not something he wants, it's what he needs to do in the system. And he has to grade 96 of them. And he is a human being. Do you know what it would take to assess 96 students in the way you are describing? Plus, cheating or not cheating is an ethical matter, not a pedagogical one. He is not trying to teach anyone not to cheat. The expectation of not cheating comes as a pre-requisite of any formal education. He has the social duty to capture cheaters because if not he is failing the society and system who have given him the responsibility to not only educate, but to certify someone's skills. If the cheaters get out there with a diploma in their hands, certified by him (and his institution), he has failed those who believe in that diploma's validity. Everything you said about learning being a lifelong pursuit that can't be forced, etc. are personal pursuits which are independent and orthogonal to this teacher's formal responsibilities in the educational system.
- overgard 3y ago
  I think it amusing and I don't have a problem with what he did, but I guess I don't really understand why teachers get so fired up about the subject in the first place. If people are in the class to fill out a general education requirement or something and otherwise don't care about the topic or will never use it again, why get so vigilant about it? And the students that do want to continue in philosophy would just be punishing themselves by cheating.
  - foldr 3y ago
    It's unfair to the students who don't cheat, and makes it hard to correctly calibrate the difficulty of exams.
    - low_tech_love 3y ago
      It’s literally his job to care about that. Chances are the students in his university classroom got their place in competition and other people weren’t so lucky. Plus everything else the previous reply said and also in mine.

sanderjd 3y ago

I think both? At least, when I was in school, I thought one of the first-order lessons they were trying to teach us was to not cheat, while also teaching us other things.

catapart 3y ago
Yeah, but WHY would they want to teach you not to cheat? It's not a virtue, in and of itself (cheating has to be defined for each context it's in so "don't cheat" is like saying "don't be bad"). They teach you not to cheat because if you cheat, you won't know the answer when you need it. If you're a doctor, and don't know the answer to a question when you need it, you might kill someone. A lawyer has problems there, too. There are great values in keeping people from relying on deferred knowledge, in a great many applications. I just don't see how philosophical ethics - especially not a mid-level course - benefits from those same lessons/limitations. If a software developer isn't expected to know every language pattern; only how to look up the patterns they need, when they need them, then why would then be disallowed from doing that on a test? A better test would target different metrics than "correct answer" or "incorrect answer". The same thing applies here. You can do software dev without being able to pass an "internal knowledge only" test. You can be productive with ethical philosophy without being able to pass an "internal knowledge only" test. So yes, both is the goal. What I'm getting at is that both SHOULDN'T be the goal. In a lot of cases. Most, I'd hazard to guess.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  That's not why they teach you not to cheat. That's why they teach doctors (and other kinds of students) that they need to memorize some things in order to have fast recall without requiring a reference. But they teach you not to cheat because cheating is bad, on its own terms. The purpose of education is not just to teach facts, but also to teach young people how to be net-positive members of society. (This is why society subsidizes education.) Teaching not to cheat to get ahead falls within that part of the curriculum.
  - catapart 3y ago
    Nothing I said implies I think education only teaches fact. Obviously I believe the contrary, as evidenced by my comments. As far as education teaching people how to be net-positive members of society, I agree that's what the education we subsidize is intended for, but that doesn't apply to this situation. A mid-level psychology course at a higher learning institution. If you honestly think that the GOAL of that course is to teach children not to cheat, I think you're grossly mistaken. First and foremost by the fact that not all students are "young people". And then by the fact that we have other courses, even in higher learning institutions, that deal with teaching the students ethics. In the other classes, as with all other areas of life, you're just expected to employ the ethics of the society. It's a meta-reinforcement of those lessons, but the reinforcements are not the lessons of the other classes. If a student fails in their ethics classes due to their ethical decisions, that makes sense. If a student fails math with the right answers but the wrong "ethics", that doesn't make sense. Unethically sourced math answers can still provide the solutions to problems. Just ask NASA. So then, if a professor of an unrelated or tangentially related field takes it upon themselves to make a lesson out of what should be a meta-reinforcement, in a field that they readily admit that they are unprepared to work in or do data analysis for, that is not a reasonable source of ethical education. Especially not when done without prior social experiment approval and safeguards.
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      There are two different questions: 1. Are these the right rules? and 2. Should students be taught to follow well defined rules? You're almost entirely talking about #1, and I totally agree. The vast majority of classes should not forbid looking stuff up because it is an artificial constraint that doesn't reflect the reality outside school. But I think #2 is also important. I know it's passe, especially in the silicon valley milieu that we swim in here, but I think "not following rules you personally think are stupid is good" is a bad lesson for students to learn. (FWIW: I thought the opposite when I was a student, but I was a short-sighted idiot when I was a student.)

elliotto 3y ago

Thank you for this comment. It's fascinating how everyone else in this thread seems to view education as a tool purely to acquire qualifications rather than for actually learning anything. I wonder if this is a US thing that has come about as the result of education becoming a financial instrument.

catapart 3y ago
I honestly think it's more of a reactionary thing. Cheating is bad. That's a pretty uncontroversial statement. Whatever the criteria for "cheating", if we're all agreeing that you did it, that's bad and deserves 'correction'. Once you're there, there's not a lot of reason to go further. "Did he cheat? Yes? Then he bad." Easy peasy, next topic of consideration. Why spend more time on something that has a simple answer? In this scenario, the students did what would have unequivocally been a "cheat", in generations past. They looked up answers and used them to prove knowledge. That's what every person who ever failed a math test for cheating did. So, again, even going deeper, this is cheating, plain and simple. No need to wade in any further, when you've already given the benefit of the doubt. Of course, this not being math, and technology replacing the need for such conventions in math are both important considerations that change the context. But, you have to give it now a third thought before you even get to this point, and of course, here's where things are quite subjective. I bet people would still pretend that knowing math is important for whatever corner of life they inhabit ("I work construction and geometry makes you a pro", "gotta be able to calculate tips", "you'll get killed on contracts with tricky rates"). Most would also quickly concede that if they were just taught how to get to interfaces (apps/websites/etc) that solve those problems, that would be effective as well (even if they couldn't help adding "but knowing is faster/better/convenient/etc"). And so, not only are we dealing with subjectivity and historical bias, but now also a confirmation bias. And all of that is on top of the authority bias that a lot of people START with ("the authority said don't do it; the students did it; they should fail." So, personally, I don't chalk up to indoctrination/conspiracy/malice anything that can be assumed to be myopia/selfishness/fear/distrust/etc. Humans are capable of the formers, but far more susceptible to the latters. That said, I'm never going to defend the US educational system, so I'm not disagree with you.
- 3y ago

6D794163636F756 3y ago

I think you have to verify that cheating did not occur in order to verify if they have learned the ethics espoused by the course. Tests function to prevent those who have not understood the course material from claiming they have. In that situation verification of truthfulness is required before you can verify their skills

catapart 3y ago
That assumes that a student is incapable of understanding the ethics without being able to practice the ethics. I think you would have a high bar in proving that to be the case. A lot of people do shit they, personally, find unethical, so long as they can square it with their own contexts of exceptions. The provided test tries to have it both ways, but that's invalid. If they are supposed to be learning the answers to the questions on the test, they can prove that even if they looked those answers up. But if the test is to not look up answers and then they get a score reflecting their ethics, then the class is meant to make more ethical students; not to have more people understand the answers to the questions on the test. At best, you could make the case for the ethical test being a component to the class. Give it a rigorous score, just like you do for any other answer on the test (pass/fail seems reductive, in this scenario, but it's reductive for a lot of tests answers, so whatever. bless the teachers who give partial points). But verifying what a student KNOWS does not, in any way, involve what ACTIONS they take.
- 6D794163636F756 3y ago
  You make a lot of good points and it's made me think that there is a fundamental assumption that tests are useful. I think that that is not the case. As you said this test attempt to both validate knowledge and ethics and ends up invalidating itself. It seems to be a flaw intrinsic to this style of test. I have taken some very well constructed tests. They were not takehome and only one was multiple choice (it was a systems class so it became sets of binary answers which became more than multiple choice). I think that ensuring the integrity of answers in necessary for gaging learnings from a test like this but that need, as you've implied, would indicate that the test is the wrong tool

low_tech_love 3y ago

With all due respect, this is nonsense. This is a teacher and a human being that exists and works within a system. You seem to be one of those people who thinks that teachers are some kind of supernatural, super-powerful heroes of humanity who have the responsibility on their backs to be larger than life. This guy has to apply exams; it's not something he wants, it's what he needs to do in the system. And he has to grade 96 of them. And he is a human being. Do you know what it would take to assess 96 students in the way you are describing? Plus, cheating or not cheating is an ethical matter, not a pedagogical one. He is not trying to teach anyone not to cheat. The expectation of not cheating comes as a pre-requisite of any formal education. He has the social duty to capture cheaters because if not he is failing the society and system who have given him the responsibility to not only educate, but to certify someone's skills. If the cheaters get out there with a diploma in their hands, certified by him (and his institution), he has failed those who believe in that diploma's validity. Everything you said about learning being a lifelong pursuit that can't be forced, etc. are personal pursuits which are independent and orthogonal to this teacher's formal responsibilities in the educational system.

overgard 3y ago
I think it amusing and I don't have a problem with what he did, but I guess I don't really understand why teachers get so fired up about the subject in the first place. If people are in the class to fill out a general education requirement or something and otherwise don't care about the topic or will never use it again, why get so vigilant about it? And the students that do want to continue in philosophy would just be punishing themselves by cheating.
- foldr 3y ago
  It's unfair to the students who don't cheat, and makes it hard to correctly calibrate the difficulty of exams.
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    It’s literally his job to care about that. Chances are the students in his university classroom got their place in competition and other people weren’t so lucky. Plus everything else the previous reply said and also in mine.